Stellafera

Me too, since it was sort of what I was hoping for from the Season 5 premiere. :-P *Our Town finishes* *cut to Discord butting in on Spike + Big McIntosh watching sports*

Not sure if I'm entirely sold on Sunset Glimmer becoming a main cast member. She's growing on me but, her personality traits seem less veritable than the Mane 6. Or maybe that's just a lack of creativity speaking.

This, basically. (Although I'd counter that AJ usually has the most consistently good appearances).

I felt like her justification was great. It was the first really cutting exploration into AJ's flaws aside from the fairly shallow stuff like "stubborn" and "overcompetitive" that you'd expect from the character archetype. "Overreaching sense of personal responsibility" is a much more interesting trait and got me to start liking AJ as a character. Now she's my favorite, so I've got a bit of a soft spot for the episode even if most of it was meh. I would say that for Season 4 Dash, who was just out-of-character for most of her episodes. Her obnoxiousness seemed pretty in character for Season 2 at that point in the show.

Oh, I'd like this! G5 as a sort of Batman Beyond scenario with the Mane 6 in a old mentor role would be wonderful and a perfect way to mix the current universe with a new cast. Maybe even move the setting to a more magitech status. Old Rainbow Dash: "I can still pull of a sonic rainboom or two in my old age." Young Flyer: "?" Old Rainbow Dash: "Eeeven if my back really hurts while doing it. "

I'm sorry, Moon Dancer. I've faced magical creatures, the end of Equestria, all sorts of things. But seeing how my actions affected you, that was one of the worst feelings I've ever had. - Twilight Sparkle, Amending Fences One of the best Twilight episodes ever. Other people cite Moon Dancer's breakdown, but Twilight's response was what got me. Don't you get it? There's every color of ribbon down there. Every color... but... blue. - Applejack, The Last Roundup This one is more of an "in context" quote, but Applejack being so devastated by the idea that she failed everyone, even in some small way, broke my heart. Nope, I'm still awesome. They're wrong. But... then... why am I all alone? I hate being all alone. - Rainbow Dash, Mysterious Mare Do Well It's a good RD episode, Mane 6 were jerks but gosh dang it it's a good RD episode It's okay. You were just trying to help. It's just too bad I'm too dumb to learn anything. - Rainbow Dash, Testing Testing 123 another good RD episode 2.3? 2.3?! That has to be some kind of mistake! I worked so hard! - Fluttershy, Hurricane Fluttershy A context based one; you're expecting Fluttershy's effort to translate into serious improvement, but instead it realistically has her only make modest gains. Fluttershy's reaction is sad and accurate. I can't fly. I just... can't. - Scootaloo, Flight to the Finish Speaking of flying... I get sad when characters who strive for goals don't reach them or especially can't reach them. I think it's because I'm a pretty ambitious person.

I like RD's voice because I feel like it's a good balance between being distinctive but also sounding somewhat like a voice you could hear from a real person, and I love the voice crack! Rarity and Applejack have the same thing going on thanks to their smooth accents. Twilight is good, of course, but somewhat par-for-the-course as far as Tara Strong voices go. Not as distinctive as say, Tara's role in Teen Titans. Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie fit the characters excellently, but they're a bit exaggerated sometimes. Pinkie Pie's voice when excited in particular grates on my father, who doesn't have the frame of reference with the characterization to brush it aside.

Appaloosa's Most Wanted had the cutie mark crusaders reveal that it's totally fine if your only talent in life is having other people laugh at you... wait, what? Just a depressing episode to me. But I enjoyed this season overall. I'm even of the somewhat unpopular opinion that What About Discord was a great episode with a solid, solid moral (only problem I had was Twilight being a little too Season 2). There's only one other episode that I really detested. Some were mediocre or had lots of problems with execution of a good concept like Castle Sweet Castle or Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep, but there was only one other episode that truly annoyed me. One... terrible... episode... I didn't really need another Rainbow Falls but thanks for asking Ms. Lewis and Songco What a terrible misuse of a great pun. The opening was... fine even though Fluttershy's book club seems faintly out of character, but once we got to the bland, bland plot there was no going back. The Hooffields are so pissed that they... are giving the McColts free food by way of cannon launch? It might be unintentional but they're actually helping them! And where the heck are they getting this food? They must not exactly be struggling. And the McColts are on the defense the entire time! What the heck kind of blood feud is this? The trojan cake also came across as uncreative. Okay, so Twilight's gonna be in the wrong, so how does Fluttershy show that a more intuitive, empathetic approach could win out over Twilight's by-the-book methods? ... She doesn't. She does nothing. She does nothing of value. The entire plot is solved because Fluttershy can speak with animals. Twilight was fricking right; the problem was INSTANTLY solved by figuring out the source of the dispute! Did anybody even learn anything? Why is Twilight's cutie mark flashing? At least Rainbow Dash's friendship influenced Gilda to turn a new leaf! Twilight didn't do anything! Oh, and this feud is solved now because... it hurt the animals? Why does anybody care about the dang animals! What about the omnipresent food that they keep wasting or the McColts' cutoff from trade? No, everyone sees the light now because I wished I just watched this clip and wasted less time I just watched the back half of this season with DashForever with no fandom reactions influencing my view, so needless to say I was quite taken aback when people disliked What About Discord more than The Hooffields and the McColts. Not to say that that's an invalid viewpoint, just that it's one that never struck me when I was watching the two. To me, even if I were against What About Discord's characterization, it at least has a moral internally consistent with itself. My family's always been full of inside jokes and stuff, so to me, the Mane 5 + Discord are just having some fun with Twilight. Discord's the only one who really pushed it, which makes sense for his character. The others felt kinda bad about how it annoyed Twilight and even played along to try to show the scene of the joke to her despite thinking it was kinda ridiculous. Hooffields and the McColts had a very obvious and cliche moral that it seemed to be building up to, but it delivered it in a really strange and to me incomprehensible way anyhow. That's why it's definitely my least favorite of the season.

This would be consistent with the fact that she also tends to be overly mothering and condescending at times (see; Stare Master, Breezies). She doesn't like having to say no, aka facing the problems.

I'd add to this that since they got their cutie marks from helping others find their special talents, that'll probably be where future CMC stories will be headed. They're basically the cutie mark experts of Equestria now, which means that there's still plenty of coming-of-age stories that you can tell; it's their specialty!

Really like your analysis, especially summarizing Fluttershy and Twilight. Rarity's a hard one to pin down, but that feels right. I would say AJ's fear is more not living up to her responsibilities. Very similar to Twilight's, as you said, but Twilight's is more external (expectations) vs Applejack's internal (sense of responsibility). She has a lot of pride wrapped around her perception of herself as "responsible", though, so she can be rather stubborn in that way.

A lot of the good S1 episodes are nice ways to realize how far the characters have come. AJ never had to relearn Applebuck Season and Stare Master was a nice look at a different side of Fluttershy (the patronizing side shown later in Breezies). Suited For Success is classic, of course, and The Ticket Master is much funnier than you might remember it as.